It's a testament to the supreme artifice of both fashion and film that so many aspects of this extravagant musical fairy tale should overlap with the "real world" of 1950s haute couture-the stylish opening credits using photographs by Richard Avedon, the attenuated presence of model-of-the-moment Dovima, and the gowns by Givenchy, who was responsible for Audrey Hepburn's image both on and off screen. The plot revolves around a struggle over Hepburn's identity-between the earnest Greenwich Village intellectual discovered in the Embryo Concepts bookshop wearing dusty tweeds and sensible shoes, and the Parisian couturier's shining embodiment of feminine perfection. Viewers may feel a twinge of discomfort when the black-clad gamine abandons her beatnik philosophy to drift downriver in a gauzy bridal dress with much older lover/mentor/fairy godfather Fred Astaire (shades of Sabrina). Still, Hepburn descending a staircase in a swath of Givenchy red, with the Nike of Samothrace as triumphant backdrop, is exhilarating enough to ease any pangs of regret.-Juliet Clark